Saturday, September 01, 2007

Rival Schools - Used For Glue + 2

Walter Schriefels has and probably always will be a very busy man. After late 80s stints with hardcore legends Gorilla Biscuits (for whom he was the main songwriter) and Youth Of Today, he soon formed proto-post-hardcore band Quicksand, whose stunning blend of melodic rock action lasted from around 1990 to 1998. Their best album was probably 1993's Slip, an album that somehow manages to mix the distorted attack of bands like Helmet with a more cerebral style of songwriting that hinted at a rather more...well...emo direction. After Quicksand's split he formed the short lived but fondly remembered (by some!) Rival Schools.

RS were a sort of post-hardcore supergroup; as well as frontman Schriefels, the other members had worked in such bands as CIV, Youth Of Today, Iceburn, Project X, Side By Side and Judge. Before joining the group, drummer Sammy Siegler had just finished completing work on the stunning debut from Glassjaw (Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Silence) and would later bizarrely go on to drum on a Limp Bizkit album. The fool! After a collaborative LP with ex-Far man Jonah Matranga's Onelinedrawing, their one and only LP, 2001's United By Fate was released. It recieved pretty heavy promotion from Mercury and singles Used For Glue and Good Things became minor mtv and radio hits in the UK and (less so) in the US. However despite the warm welcome they were given, guitarist Ian Love's departure in 2003 to work on his Cardia project caused the group to split.

Personally I thought United was one of the best LPs of that year, commercial and poppy and yet very thoughtful and well constructed; a kind of power-pop distillation of Walter's heavier work. I listened to it pretty much nonstop that summer, and managed to catch the band twice; once supporting A at the Portsmouth Pyramid centre and once at Reading Festival. Despite claims from some people that they were 'even worse live than on record' (THE IDIOTS), both shows I saw were stunning and 20000000 times more fun than a lot of other things happening in mainstream rock that year. They also had really great tshirts, and notably casued me to dance so strenuously to their music at a nightclub that I accidentally headbutted a lady. Not one of my proudest moments, but we're all friends here right? Here's a single and it's two bsides. Enjoy!

Saw them at Glastonbury in 02 and they actually started early, ahead of the published time. That never happens! So we missed The Switch. Good rest of set, though. Walter never stopped smiling, and they had RS frisbees.

Great post, great tunes. I remember this band being grinded by the then very cool show, the only one that dared put on good music, MTV:New. "Used for Glue" is a great tune, the video is kind of cute and summerish. Shame they didn't last to record another album.